The Nation’s Largest Tax Dodgers Are Lobbying Hard for More Tax “Relief”

Headline on press release from the National Press Club:

“Sen. Warren says she's concerned about Hillary Clinton's ties to Wall Street”

Wow. Elizabeth Warren came out swinging against Hillary Clinton, huh? Well, no, she didn’t. In a half hour talk she came out swinging against the way the nation’s largest corporations are dodging taxes. Her aim was to sound the alarm that the tax code is in danger of being tilted even further in their favor.

The Clinton reference came near the end of a half hour of follow-up questions, one of which was whether she was concerned about Clinton’s Wall Street donations. Her answer: "I’m concerned about everybody's ties to Wall Street. Look around Washington. I am worried about the influence Wall Street has on Washington."

Elizabeth Warren didn’t come to the National Press Club to beat up on Clinton. In fact, her answer to that question obviously was designed to avoid even mentioning her.

But the media can’t seem to help itself when it comes to politics. Candidates, polls, political minutia---news judgement invariably defaults into those tired pathways. Serious content becomes oh, by-the-way filler. The round pegs of policy need to fit into the square holes of partisan politics.

Another case in point: The lead paragraph on NPR’s online coverage of Warren’s speech: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., may not be running for president in 2016, but she was campaigning hard Wednesday to be an agenda-setting power broker.”

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